Mentos and Smart Water
by GoingVintage
Summary: He only notices her because he decides to stop into the news store across from his gate at JFK. Noah Puckerman, lead guitarist for an up and coming pop sensation who stupidly goes by one name only, already has a girlfriend. A Puckleberry one-shot written about a chance meeting in JFK.


**Author's Note**: I'm apologizing in advance for this. I've had two hours of sleep and I'm at gate F8 in Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, waiting on my connecting flight to Seattle. I'm exhausted, irritated, and this just happened. It probably has no point, either!

* * *

He only notices her because he decides to stop into the news store across from his gate at JFK. Noah Puckerman, lead guitarist for an up and coming pop sensation who stupidly goes by one name only, already has a girlfriend. Still, the image of Quinn's hazel eyes do little to deter him from checking out the tiny cashier that sells him two packs of Mentos, a bottle of Smart Water, and the latest issue of _Rolling Stone _(which he probably won't even read.) The thing about living in New York City is that nobody is friendly. People rarely smile. Most of the time, they'd just as soon stop on your face as move out of your way. So when this petite brunette with some seriously intense brown eyes gives him a megawatt smile, Puck is disarmed. All he can do is give her a lazy smile back. When she chirps that she hopes he has a fantastic flight, he tugs at the bill of his ballcap in acknowledgement and heads off to board the flight before it leaves without him.

…

Five weeks later, he's back in JFK. He only had three days off but Quinn wouldn't stop bitching at him about being away from home for so long (like she wasn't aware that he was a musician before they got together or something) so he comes home.

As he strolls through the concourse on the way to his gate, Puck rolls his shoulders. Tension is bunched up at the base of his neck, and no matter what he does, he can't shake the feeling. He and Quinn ended up spending all three days that he was home doing nothing but fighting. She's decided that it's time they have a baby. Yeah, he's 27 and he's been with her forever, but he's sure as fuck not ready to be somebody's daddy. He didn't exactly have a good role model for fatherhood growing up – his dad preferred booze and hookers before he wasn't there at all – and he's pretty sure that any kid he brings into this world will probably be fucked up as soon as it slides out of the birth canal. Hell no, he's not having kids. Quinn, though, is a spoiled princess and is used to getting what she wants. When he told her no for the ten thousandth time this weekend, she told him that she'd be gone when he got home again. He thinks he should probably be more upset, but he's not.

He skids to a stop in front of the news store. He can't remember what gate he was at last time or if he's even in the same concourse because he flies so much, but there she is again. Her back is to him, her hair cascading down in soft curls. She's wearing a tiny skirt and she has these long legs that instantly make him half-hard and when he moves closer, he can hear that she's humming to herself as she re-stacks boxes containing little figurines of the Statue of Liberty that look like they were made by blind people in a Chinese factory.

"Hey." He has no idea why he approaches her, and even less of an idea as to why he speaks to her, but she turns around and her beautiful eyes widen as she smiles, he feels some of the tension he's been carrying around start to ease.

"Hello!" She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and asks, "Can I help you?"

Puck stares at her. "Uh, not really. Just here for water and Mentos and shit."

The girl, whose name Puck learns is Rachel because he decides to take a quick glance down at her tits and accidentally reads her name tag, smiles brighter and gestures toward the cooler. "Well we have all your needs. Do you have a long flight ahead of you?"

Puck has to pause, thinking hard because he can't even remember where he's headed. That's the bitch of being on this national tour. All the cities are running together and every damn airport looks exactly the same. He glances down at the Delta boarding pass in his hand, his brows knitting together as he frowns down at it. "I guess I'm going to Minneapolis. The hell is in Minneapolis anyway?"

Rachel laughs and shakes her head. "I have no idea. I've never been. Are you going on business?" She begins walking toward the front register and Puck finds himself following her.

"Business? Kinda. I mean, I guess. I'm a musician and I'm regrouping with the tour I'm with there."

A sharp squeal pierces his ears as Rachel turns to him and grips his forearm. "You're a musician? So I am!" An attractive pink blush tints her cheeks and she stammers, "Well, at least I'm trying to be. I'm trying to get on Broadway but so far, the closest I've gotten is off-off-off Broadway. If I were any father off Broadway, I'd be in New Jersey."

Puck chuckles. He knows how she feels. There's a million starving musicians in Manhattan. He knows he's lucky as hell to be where he is, even if he doesn't really like the woman he's backing up on stage each night.

"Do I know the person you're on tour with?"

Glancing around, Puck's eyes land on the latest issue of _Us Weekly_. The headline reads, "Is teen pop princess Annalise out of control?" After he rolls his eyes, he points at the magazine. "Yeah, I work for her."

Rachel follows the direction of his hand, her smile sliding off her face as she reads the headline. "Oh," is all she says.

"Oh?" Puck parrots.

"Um… well… I don't really like her that much."

Puck snorts. "We have something in common 'cause neither do I. Chick is terrible. A real fucking nightmare."

Rachel studies the picture Annalise that graces the cover of the magazine. "I mean, I'm sure she has talent. She just sounds so… manufactured."

Puck is so used to women, especially Quinn, acting like assholes over how great they think Annalise is that meeting someone who hates her is like a balm to his soul. As he picks up his customary Mentos and Smart Water, he grins. "The only thing real about that girl is her feet. Pretty much everything else has been altered."

Rachel begins ringing up his purchases. "So tell me about you. How'd you get to be a musician?"

Her question takes him aback because rarely does anyone find out that he works for Annalise and then wants to talk about _him. _After he swallows, he begins to talk.

When he leaves the store ten minutes later, he's late for boarding his flight but he doesn't care. He's got Rachel's phone number tucked into his back pocket.

…

He waits three days to call her. Tours are hectic and he's already fucking exhausted, so when he gets back to his room, he falls onto the bed and digs out her number. She promised him that she worked odd hours, often burning the candle at both ends, and told him that he was welcome to call her anytime. He hopes that "anytime" means 1:30am. When she doesn't answer until the fourth ring and she says hello in this sleepy, sultry voice, his dick goes from dormant to rigid.

"Hey, Rachel. It's me, Puck."

"Noah," she says softly. "How are you?"

"Tired. But I can tell you are, too. I'll just call you back some other time, okay?"

He hears noise on the other end of the phone and then Rachel says, "No, really, it's fine. I have to be at the airport really early today anyway because I swapped shifts with someone. How's the tour going?"

"Fucking sucks." Puck crosses his feet at the ankle and tucks his hand behind his head. "We've still got nine weeks to go and there won't be any breaks, but at least when I'm done, I can go home and stay home for a while."

Rachel gives a soft hum into the phone and then asks, "Do you get a rush playing in those huge arenas every night?"

"Hell yeah," Puck breathes, "even if I am playing shit music. Still, when the lights come up and there are thousands of people out there and camera flashes and all that noise, the rush is amazing. I just ignore the stupid songs about all the boys who've done her wrong and focus on being the baddest assed badass guitar player I can be."

Rachel laughs. The sound warms him from the inside out. "So tell me about your latest project, Rachel," Puck prods. "I've never really talked to an actress."

The sigh on the other end of the phone tells him that she's not pleased. "This show, Noah! I'm exceptionally happy to be the lead, of course, because it's my first shot at it. But it's the dumbest musical I've ever had the displeasure of being involved with. My dads' cat, Barry Manilow, could write a musical with more continuity and better songs!"

Puck chokes. "Your family has a cat named Barry Manilow?"

"Oh, Noah," Rachel chides, "let me _tell_ you about my family."

…

That one late-night phone call leads to at least a dozen more over the next three weeks. It's on a Sunday, between that time when it's no longer night but not quite morning yet, that Puck tells Rachel all about Quinn. "I understand, Noah," she promises after he finishes his story. "I never had a mother, so the idea of being a parent terrifies me. I met my birth mother a few years ago and she and I have forged a relationship, but it's more as friends than mother and daughter. I certainly don't ask her for advice or anything because she's not really my mother, you know? And frankly, I think it's pretty terrible of Quinn to demand you impregnate her!"

"No shit!" Puck sits up straight and grins into the phone. "I walked into the bedroom and she's laying on our bed in this little red, lacy get-up and she's all, 'Puck, I'm ovulating. I need you. We should have a baby! Make me pregnant, Puck!' Now if that demand don't make the dick shrivel right up, nothin' will."

Rachel hoots into the phone. "You poor thing! So she's moved out for sure?"

"Yup." Puck stands up and shucks off his jeans, pulling the phone away long enough to tug the sweatshirt over his head and throw it on the floor. He puts the phone back to his ear as he slides back into the bed and flicks off the light. "I had my ma stop by the apartment to check. It's pretty damn near empty. She took everything, even my beta fish, David Lee Roth."

"Oh my God!" Rachel shrieks. "You give me hell about my cat named Barry Manilow when you have a fish named David Lee Roth?"

"Had, Rachel," Puck emphasizes. "_Had_. I'm going to have to get another one. What a bitch. I liked that fish. He was pretty fuckin' chill."

The laughter on the other end of the line makes him grin so hard that his cheeks hurts. This girl, from hundreds of miles away, makes him happier than he's been in a long time.

…

It takes four more weeks of what are now daily phone calls to finally cross that line from friends into something much more. Their hours of phone conversations have pretty much led to him retelling his entire life story. She knows all about his wild high school years, his stint in juvie, and even his involvement in the glee club, which he's never admitted to_ anyone _before now. She's told him about her struggles being the daughter of two gay men, about how she's never going to let her dreams die, no matter how awful the musical is that she's involved with right now is, and how badly her ex- boyfriend broke her heart. If he was one to fall in love, he'd swear he was already in love with this girl. Lucky for him, he doesn't do love.

Sex, though, he does just fine. He's in his hotel in Phoenix the first time he hears her come. He didn't meant to start talking dirty to her. Really, he didn't. But when he calls her, she tells him she's just gotten out of the shower and hasn't even gotten dressed yet. "Fuck, baby, I'd give anything to see you naked" pours out of his mouth before he can even stop himself and then he closes his eyes, afraid he's crossed the line with her. On the other end of the phone, she's quiet for a minute before she says softly, "My nipples just got so hard when I imagined standing in front of you like this."

Two seconds later, his hand is inside his boxer briefs and he's stroking himself. They trade dirty thoughts – first, with a little coaching on his part – until she's breathy and gasping his name. He tells her just how he wants her to touch her clit and when she does, he promises that his mouth will be right there in a few weeks, doing that very same thing. She comes with a heavy sob and cries out his name, which makes him stroke his cock harder, his thumb brushing the head again and again, until he spills all over his stomach. He's never had phone sex before but he's fucking exhausted and happy afterward. He wonders if he'll really get to fuck her when he gets back to New York, but decides he won't ask. He's hopeful that it will just happen.

…

The last week of the tour, Puck is antsy. Rachel has already promised him that she's going to be waiting at the gate when he arrives. She's taken two days off work because they've made plans to spend them together. He's got dinner reservations at this really sheik Vegan restaurant for their first official date, and he plans to walk her to her door and kiss her goodnight unless she indicates that she wants more than that. Since their first bout of phone sex, they've gotten each other off five more times. He can't jerk off without her voice in his ear now, which is really fucked up. He's a pro at jerking off. He's been doing it since he was, like, eleven. But he only wants to come _with _Rachel until he can come _in _her, so he settles for those times on the phone when he asks her how wet her pussy is and if she wants him to finger her until she comes. She's so fucking responsive that it never takes much to get her off, even over the phone. He can't even imagine how sex is going to be like with her in person. She's probably going to make the top of his head blow off.

…

As soon as they take their last bow, Puck is fucking out of there. He's in a cab and then at LAX, where he has to wait for a few hours. He wanders into a news store that looks nearly identical to the one he frequents on the other side of the country to get his Mentos and Smart Water. The guy across the counter from him takes his money without even looking at him. No smile. No "thank you". Not even a "fuck you very much." This is typical, he thinks. Rachel is anything _but _typical. He can't wait to get home to her.

...

The flight is the longest in his life. He bounces his leg the whole time, his nerves out of control. The old hag next to him keeps glaring at him, which only makes him stop bouncing his leg for a few seconds before he starts again. He can't help it. He's so damn nervous. What if he and Rachel aren't really compatible? What if what had been amazing phone chemistry sputters to a quick, miserable death once they're really together? What if she decides she doesn't like him? She's kind of out of his league, he knows. She's too damn classy and sophisticated to be with a schmuck like him but he's not one to ever look a gift horse in the mouth. He just wants her to _like _him, because he's pretty sure that he loves her. (Turns out, he _does_ do love, after all.)

…

As he walks up down the concourse toward the main terminal at JFK, Puck's heart is in his throat. He knows that, just a few feet away, the girl he's been looking for his whole life is waiting. On him. He knows now that Quinn was nothing more than a placeholder, a warm-up act, and that the real show is about to begin.

When he steps the terminal, there are hundreds of people moving in every direction. Still, he spots her immediately. She's wearing a black sweater, a red pokla-dotted skirt, and tiny little flats. She looks a little bit like Minnie Mouse, which makes him laugh even as she yells his name and flings herself into his arms. She pulls back from hugging him only to smother his face with tiny little kisses. It's only when he captures her lips with his and their tongues mingle until she moans his name that he realizes that everything is going to be okay. Holding Rachel like this feels really fucking right.

They walk, hand in hand, toward the doors. As they do, they pass another one of those little news stores, making Puck smirk. He may have just gone in for Mentos and Smart Water (and a _Rolling Stone_ that he never even looked at) that one time, but he's leaving this time with a hell of a lot more.


End file.
